The present invention relates to a water-free low viscous liquid bread improver, which comprises a liquid emulsifier, a glyceride based stabilizer and additive(s) and less than about 20% oil, and to a process for producing a liquid bread improver. The liquid bread improver according to the present invention may be used in e.g. a variety of products in bakery industry or in extruded snacks.
Bread improvers are widely used in the bakery industry. Bread improvers are compositions containing a variety of ingredients, which improve dough properties and quality of bakery products, e.g. bread and cakes. Bread improvers affect e.g. the dough stability and the bread texture and volume. Bread improvers usually contain fats and oils as well as additives like emulsifiers, enzymes, antioxidants, oxidants, stabilizers and reducing agents.
Liquid bread improvers are often preferred nowadays because they are easy to handle and mix with other ingredients. Liquid bread improvers are dustless, thus there is no risk of allergenic reactions of the workers in the bakery caused by e.g. enzymes. They are pumpable, which reduce the amount of labour needed. They enhance the distribution of functional ingredients in the dough and allow a lower cost in use. A liquid bread improver is easy to handle and it enables accurate dosing of the amount of the bread improver. Liquid bread improvers made with current technology are made by mixing emulsifiers with large amount of oils to decrease the viscosity of the emulsifiers in order to allow the improvers to be fluid enough to be pumped.
EP 0 572 051 discloses a liquid bread-improver composition comprising 75-95 wt. % a vegetable oil having N20<2.0, 1-5 wt. % a hydrogenated and a partly hydrogenated vegetable oil as well as emulsifiers, flavours, bread-improving enzymes and oxidants.
EP 0 421 510 discloses a flowable, fat-containing bread-improver composition comprising a mixture of fat and additives, including solids, whereby solid fat particles together with solid additive particles are dispersed in a liquid glyceride oil. The oil content of the compositions in the examples is more than 45%. The dispersion according to the invention contains more than 18 wt. % of the total solid particles.
WO01/70036 discloses a liquid bread improver in the form of an improving agent in an oily vehicle and a fumed silica stabilizing agent.
WO01/11974 discloses a liquid bread improver comprising 30 to 70 wt. % a vegetable triglyceride oil, 2.5 to 15 wt. % fat and/or emulsifier, 0.05 to 5 wt % enzyme particles and 5 to 50 wt. % other bread improving ingredients.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,477,479 relates to liquid dough conditioners for bakery goods which conditioners comprise about 10 to about 90 weight % of diacetyl tartaric acid esters of diglycerides, about 6 to about 86 weight % glycerides, and about 4 to about 12 weight % either lactic acid or an acyl lactylic acid. In the invention in question lactic acid or an acyl lactylic acid is added as a clarifying agent.
The prior art does not disclose any water-free low viscous liquid bread improvers containing liquid emulsifiers which contain only little, i.e. less than about 20% oil. It has not been possible to produce liquid bread improvers containing liquid emulsifiers with such a low amount of oil and no water and still having a low enough viscosity to be pumped.
The liquid bread improvers containing large amounts of oil cannot be used in all types of recipes for example used for baking bread. Presence of oil may cause unwanted texture characteristics to some products, such as low volume of the bread, problems with sliceability, a too tight texture. Oil may also have an unwanted effect on the taste and lower the healthiness of the product.
The production process normally used to produce conventional liquid bread improvers requires several process steps in order to give a homogeneous product, which is stable during storage. The process covers the following steps: fat, oil and emulsifiers should be heated in order to give a uniform mixture. This mixture then has to be chilled and then rested for several hours. After the resting period additives, such enzymes, emulsifiers and ascorbic acid are added during agitation. This process makes it necessary for the liquid bread improver producer to have special equipment, such as a tube chiller. Additionally it is necessary to have large buffer tanks to keep the improver for the resting period. Thus, there are major investments needed before liquid bread improver producers are able to begin actual production with the current technology. Thus, it is not profitable for small bread improver producers to change the production from powdered improvers to liquid bread improvers.
Through a research and a development process, it has now been found that it is possible to prepare a water-free low viscous liquid bread improver containing liquid emulsifier containing less than 20% oil in a process, which is simple and technically advantageous. This is possible because the liquid emulsifier used has a low viscosity at ambient temperature. This low viscosity of the liquid emulsifier ensures that the final improver remains liquid and thus pumpable. In the present invention the liquid bread improver with less than 20% oil is capable of sustaining a stable and low viscous dispersion with up to 30% solid additives.
When the bread improver of the present invention is composed of only liquid emulsifier based on esters of hydroxy polycarbocylic acid derivatives and glyceride based stabilizer the mixture can be produced through the same process steps as described for the production of liquid improvers above. This process should be performed by a company, which has the needed equipment for the producing liquid improvers as stated above. This mixture can then be sold to smaller producers, which would like to produce liquid bread improvers, but do not find it profitable with the current technology due to the mentioned needed investments. These producers would then only need to add the appropriate additives to the mixture of the liquid emulsifier and glyceride based stabilizer and agitate for few minutes in order to produce a liquid bread improver. Thus, these producers' investments in order to produce liquid bread improvers will be much smaller, since they do not need special heating and cooling equipment.